Strong global opposition towards nuclear power

0 comments

Posted on 28th June 2011 by admin in Nuclear Energy

, , , , ,

Ipsos Global @dvisor, 23 June 2011 [Fieldwork May 6 - 21, 2011]

New research by Ipsos MORI shows that three in five global citizens (62%) oppose the use of nuclear energy – a quarter (26%) of those have been influenced by the recent nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan.

The latest Ipsos Global @dvisor survey shows that support for nuclear energy is far below that for solar power (97%), wind power (93%), hydroelectric power (91%) and natural gas (80%) as a source of electricity.

Just one in four (38%) adults across 24 countries support the use of nuclear energy. Support is highest in India (61%), Poland (57%) and the United States (52%).

Britons are split on the issue with half supporting (48%) and half opposing (51%) the use of nuclear energy. One in five (20%) Britons that are against the use of nuclear energy say they their opinion has been influenced by the events in Fukushima.

Managing Director of the Ipsos MORI Reputation Centre, Milorad Ajder, said:

“Nuclear energy is a controversial issue at the best of times and the disaster in Fukushima has clearly had a negative impact on the way people see its use. With mounting global opposition, some countries are already decided to scale back its use, with some abandoning it all together.”
Download the full presentation slides
Technical Note

This survey was conducted in 24 countries including Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Turkey and the United States of America. An international sample of 18,787 adults aged 18-64 in the US and Canada, and age 16-64 in all other countries, were interviewed between May 6 and May 21, 2011 via the Ipsos Online Panel system.

Approximately 1000+ individuals participated on a country by country basis with the exception of Argentina, Indonesia, Mexico, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, Russia and Turkey, where each have a sample 500+. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics and ensure that the sample’s composition reflected that of the adult population according to the most recent country Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe.

A survey with an unweighted probability sample of this size and a 100% response rate would have an estimated margin of error of +/-3.1 percentage points for a sample of 1,000 and an estimated margin of error of +/- 4.5 percentage points for a sample of 500 19 times out of 20 per country of what the results would have been had the entire population of the specifically aged adults in that country been polled.

Related posts:

  1. Scandalous SA Nuclear Industry rides on Fukushima Events to Promote Nuclear Energy
  2. Global Wind Power Generated Record Year in 2006
  3. The medical and economic costs of nuclear power
  4. Nuclear terrorism can cause another Fukushima: expert
  5. Jack Layton on nuclear power in Canada

Fukushima residents’ urine now radioactive

0 comments

Posted on 28th June 2011 by admin in Radiation

, , , , , , , ,

Kyodo: The Japan Times, Monday, June 27, 2011

More than 3 millisieverts of radiation has been measured in the urine of 15 Fukushima residents of the village of Iitate and the town of Kawamata, confirming internal radiation exposure, it was learned Sunday.

Both are about 30 to 40 km from the Fukushima No. 1 power plant, which has been releasing radioactive material into the environment since the week of March 11, when the quake and tsunami caused core meltdowns.

“This won’t be a problem if they don’t eat vegetables or other products that are contaminated,” said Nanao Kamada, professor emeritus of radiation biology at Hiroshima University. “But it will be difficult for people to continue living in these areas.”

Kamada teamed up with doctors including Osamu Saito of Watari Hospital in the city of Fukushima to conduct two rounds of tests on each resident in early and late May, taking urine samples from 15 people between 4 and 77.

Radioactive cesium was found both times in each resident.

Read full article

Related posts:

  1. Radiation Readings in Fukushima Reactor Rise to Highest Since Crisis Began
  2. Fukushima Nuclear leak may exceed Chernobyl, Japan admits
  3. TEPCO admits a meltdown in Fukushima
  4. Radioactivity level in contaminated seawater approaches record high
  5. Hard Lessons from Chernobyl and Fukushima

Missouri River soaks Nebraska nuclear plant, but it’s no Fukushima

0 comments

Posted on 28th June 2011 by admin in Nuclear Energy

, , , , , ,

Source: http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/2011/0627/Missouri-River-soaks-Nebraska-nuclear-plant-but-it-s-no-Fukushima

Much of the grounds at Fort Calhoun nuclear plant in Nebraska are under two feet of water from the rising Missouri River. But the plant’s critical systems sit six feet above the flood’s expected crest.

Pete Spotts, Staff writer, Christian Science Monitor, June 27, 2011

Flooding along the Missouri River has overspread much of one nuclear power plant’s boundaries, forcing it onto emergency generators, and threatens a second plant downstream.

In both cases, regulators and operators say the plants appear to be in no danger of the kind of sequence of events – exacerbated by plant-design flaws – that led to the tsunami-spawned nuclear disaster in March atJapan’s Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

The two plants, nestled along the Missouri River inNebraska, “will be annoyed but not destroyed,” adds David Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer and nuclear-safety specialist at the Union of Concerned Scientists in Washington.

At the plant facing the biggest challenge, the Fort Calhoun Nuclear Station, about 30 miles north ofOmaha, the Missouri River is predicted to crest Wednesday at 33 feet above flood stage – some six feet below the level critical buildings at the plant were designed to handle. That flood crest would put the flood level roughly half an inch higher than it is currently.

Much of the plant’s grounds are under at least two feet of water. Through early Saturday morning, the reactor-containment building and its adjacent auxiliary buildings were high and dry, protected by a 2,000-foot-long water-filled berm. But workers operating heavy machinery ruptured the eight-foot-high berm, allowing water to lap at these structures as well. Some water has leaked into the turbine building, which houses no nuclear material.

Read full article

Among the issues:

• The plant had stockpiled plenty of sandbags but not the sand to fill them.

• The Omaha Public Power District, which runs the plant, installed floodgates designed to keep floodwaters from overpowering the doors behind the gates. But the floodgates must be shored up on the outside – and topped – with sand bags. The support structures across the top of the gates weren’t strong enough to withstand the weight of sandbags that would be place on top of them.

Read full article

Related posts:

  1. Japan’s Chernobyl? Radiation pressure fears at Fukushima plant
  2. Second explosion at Fukushima Nuclear Plant in Japan (Video)
  3. Japan Plant Fuel Melted Partway Through Reactors: Report
  4. Fukushima Nuclear Cleanup Plans Hinge on Unknowns
  5. Fukushima Cores More Damaged Than Thought

IAEA Head, on Nuclear Safety: ‘We Need To Have A Sense Of Urgency’

0 comments

Posted on 28th June 2011 by admin in Nuclear Energy

, , , , , ,

GEORGE JAHN, Huffington Post,    June 20 2011
Source: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/20/yukiya-amano-iaea-nuclear-safety_n_880479.html

VIENNA — The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency on Tuesday urged a worldwide review of safety measures to prevent new nuclear disasters, but acknowledged that since his organization lacks the authority to enforce  rules any improvements are only effective if countries apply them.

While some countries at the 151-member IAEA’s meeting want any new safety regime to be mandatory, most prefer them to be voluntary and don’t want a regulatory role for IAEA. If the IAEA cannot enforce safety standards, those rules will be only as good as they are being enforced by IAEA nations.

“Even the best safety standards are useless unless they are actually implemented,” Amano said.

Asked outside the meeting if he would like to see the IAEA have the same authority against safety violators as it now has against nuclear proliferators – which includes referral to the U.N. Security Council – he said: “I do not exclude that possibility.”

But he said a sense of post-Fukushima urgency dictated action now under existing rules.

“We have to move by days, weeks, months, and I cannot wait years” – the time it would take to revise the IAEA’s mandate for the 35-nation board – he said. “We need to have a sense of urgency.”

Read Full Article

Related posts:

  1. Nuclear terrorism can cause another Fukushima: expert
  2. Nuclear Energy: SA Government Sticks its Head in the Sand
  3. Scandalous SA Nuclear Industry rides on Fukushima Events to Promote Nuclear Energy
  4. Nuclear Agency Is Criticized as Too Close to Its Industry
  5. Fukushima and Chernobyl Raise Questions about WHO’s Role

Nuclear terrorism can cause another Fukushima: expert

0 comments

Posted on 28th June 2011 by admin in Nuclear Energy

, , , ,

VIENNA, Reuters, Thu Jun 23, 2011
Source: http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/23/us-nuclear-security-idUSTRE75M1SU20110623

(Reuters) — Global action to protect the nuclear industry against possible terrorist attacks is urgently needed, a leading expert said, as are safety steps to prevent any repeat of Japan’s Fukushima
accident.

“Both al Qaeda and Chechen terrorist groups have repeatedly considered sabotaging nuclear reactors — and Fukushima provided a compelling example of the scale of terror such an attack might cause,” Matthew Bunn of Harvard University said.

Some countries had “extraordinarily weak security measures in place,” he said in an Internet blog posted this week, without naming them.

“The nuclear industry in many countries is much less prepared to cope with security incidents than with accidents,” wrote Bunn, an associate professor at Harvard Kennedy School who specializes in nuclear issues.

Steps to protect against both sabotage of nuclear facilities and theft of nuclear weapons or the materials to make them were “particularly urgent.”

Read full article

Related posts:

  1. Joint Statement on the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Disaster On the Occasion of the 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Nuclear Disaster
  2. Fukushima Cores More Damaged Than Thought
  3. Fukushima – a 1 percent risk is 100 percent too high
  4. Nuclear plants must not turn into radiological weapons
  5. Scandalous SA Nuclear Industry rides on Fukushima Events to Promote Nuclear Energy
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »
lazy-submarginal
Afrigator

Coalition Against Nuclear Energy is Digg proof thanks to caching by WP Super Cache